Providing a live expert to provide answers to online customers who are stuck, confused, or experiencing an issue on a product web page is a very important feature offered by web sites. Such answers are commonly provided in a back and forth text conversation that occurs over a live chat session initiated by the customer during the customer's online shopping experience. Live chat can provide quicker and more efficient answers to questions than telephone support. Live chat increases customer satisfaction and makes an ultimate purchase more likely. Live chat with an expert provides customers with a desired level of convenience, an opportunity for business to connect with the customer to resolve issues in real time and thus establish a better relationship with the customer, and provides an opportunity for an expert to upsell the customer on additional products or services. Similar to live chat, word of mouth marketing is another useful marketing strategy. Word of mouth recommendations are key influencers in customer purchasing decisions, and use of word of mouth as a marketing strategy has been shown to significantly improve the effectiveness of marketing efforts.
In contrast to online shopping environments, brick-and-mortar stores and other real-world shopping venues do not provide live chat and other electronic-based interactions between customers and experts and do little or nothing to facilitate customer-to-customer communications to encourage word-of-mouth type recommendations.